Trickster

Dark grey sky, dampness in the air...of course I left the play yard open for the girls yesterday morning.  Two more loads of wood to the house.  A quick hit-and-run trip with Bess to the feed store (closer than Holiday) for cat supplies.  And it never rained.  I could hear Nature chortling as she said, "Gotcha!"

Oh well, those things needed doing anyway.  I might have chosen a slower pace, however.

Why so much wood, you ask.  Depending on when I light the fire, Stove can eat up close to half a wagon's worth in a day.  A lot has to do with the kind of wood he's fed.  I have cedar, which burns hot and fast and leaves fewer ashes, and oak, which is harder to start, burns slow and steady, and leaves a lot of ash.  I don't burn pine because it creates more creosote in the chimney.  Sometimes when burning oak, I have to empty the ash tray during the day to keep a good air supply.  I have a welder's glove for that job.  Those ashes and the tray are hot!  There is a small metal trash bucket with a lid on the porch to put the ashes in to cool.  Every year there are warnings and every year somebody starts a house fire because they put their hot ashes in a plastic garbage can.  Common sense is not so common.

The cats are very happy with fresh litter.  They don't know how close they came to being put on a diet.

Now the forecasters are saying it won't rain until next week.  I won't take that as gospel because one never knows what tricks Nature has up her sleeve.